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MAJOR WORKS DATA SHEET: The Sound & The Fury
Title: The Sound and the Fury
Author: William Faulkner
Date of Publication: 1929
Genre: Tragedy
Biographical information about the author:
William Faulkner was born William Cuthbert Falkner in New Albany, MS and lived during September 25, 1897 - July 6, 1962. His great-grandfather William Clark Falkner was a colonel in the Confederate Army, founded a railroad, gave his name to the town of Falkner in Tippah County, was a writer and became a model for Faulkner’s character Colonel John Sartoris. He was ignored by the United States Army because he was too short and so joined the Canadian and Royal Air Force but didn’t have any wartime action during WWI. He later went to Hollywood to be come a screenwriter (producing a script for Ernest Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not). After getting writer’s block for a screenplay, Faulkner left work at home to concentrate better. Howard Hawks, the director of To Have and Have Not, phoned Faulkner’s hotel room to find that Faulkner literally went home. He was a heavy alcoholic and found out a family member lied to him about his Nobel Prize reception date in order to keep him sober for the occasion, so he kept on drinking. At the reception speech it was hard for the audience to understand anything he said because of his mumbling and southern drawl. He served as Writer-in-Residence at the University of Virginia from 1957 until his death from a heart attack in 1962. There are three possible reasons for putting the ‘U’ in his name: 1) to appear more British when entering the Royal Air Force 2) to make it sound more aristocratic 3) keeping a misspelling that an early editor had made.
Historical information about the time period:
The 1920’s in America was the Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties. It was in history where Charles Lindbergh made the first solo flight across the Atlantic nonstop. (May 20-21, 1927). It was also the decade to the Great Depression which started with Black Tuesday (10/29/1929). Gangsters and organized crime were in defiance to Prohibition and often bootlegged liquor. The 1920’s are home to the culture of the Lost Generation found in many novels such as The Great Gatsby and The Sun Also Rises. In 1920 women were able to vote due to an additional amendment.
Characteristics of the genre:
Plot Summary:
Faulkner opens up the novel with the story’s invalid, Benjy Compson who is the youngest of the Compson children.
NAME
ROLE IN STORY
SIGNIFICANCE
ADJECTIVES
Jason Compson III
Father, nihilist
He
Caroline Compson
Mother, hypochondriac
Quentin Compson
Oldest son
Candance “Caddy” Compson
Daughter
Jason Compson IV
3rd child, cynic
Benjamin Compson
Youngest child, mentally handicapped
Miss Quentin
Caddy’s daughter
Damuddy
The children’s grandmother
Sydney Herbert Head
Caddy’s husband, not Quentin’s father
Dalton Ames
The first man Caddy sleeps with
Dilsey
The family’s maid, raised the children
Roskus
Frony
Versh
T.P.
Luster
Earl
Lorraine
Shreve
Shroade
THEME, SYMBOLS & MOTIFS
The Corruption of Southern Aristocratic Values -
Resurrection and Renewal -
The Failure of Language and Narrative -
Loss of Innocence
Time -
Order and Chaos -
Shadows -
Water -
Quentin’s Watch -
SIGNIFICANT SCENES
QUOTES
“I will.” Caddy said. “I will.” She fought. Father held her. She kicked at Jason. He rolled into the corner, out of the mirror. Father brought Caddy to the fire. They were all out of the mirror. Only the fire was in it. Like the fire was in a door. (page 65)
Versh said, Your name Benjamin now. You know how come your name Benjamin now. They making a bluegum out of you. Mammy say in old time your granpaw changed nigger’s name, and he turn preacher, and when they took at him, he bluegum too. Didn’t use to be bluegum, neither. And when family woman look him in the eye in the full of the moon, chile born bluegum. And one evening when they was about a dozen them bluegum chillen running around the place, he never come home. Possum hunters found him in the woods, et clean. And you know who et him. Them bluegum chillen did. (page 69)
Father gave it to me he said I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire; it’s rather excruciating-ly apt that you will use it to gain the reducto absurdum of all human experience which can fit your individual needs no better than it fitted his or his father’s. I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all your breath trying to conquer it. Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools. (page 76)
In the South you are ashamed of being a virgin. Boys. Men. They lie about it. Because it means less to women, Father said. He said it was men invented virginity not women. Father said it’s like death: only a state in which the others are left and I said, But to believe it doesn’t matter and he said, That’s what’s so sad about anything: not only virginity and I said, Why couldn’t it have been me and not her who is unvirgin and he said, That’s why that’s sad too; nothing is even worth the changing of it, and Shreve said if he’s got better sense than to chase after the little dirty sluts and I said Did you ever have a sister? Did you? Did you? (page 78)
Women are like that they don’t acquire knowledge of people we are for that they are just born wit ha practical fertility of suspicion that makes a crop every so often and usually right they have an affinity for evil for supplying whatever the evil lacks in itself for drawing it about them instinctively as you do bed-clothing in slumber fertilising the mind for it until the evil has served its purpose whether it ever existed or no (page 96)
Works Cited
Mr. Compson’s nihilism
Philosophy.
An extreme form of skepticism that denies all existence.
A doctrine holding that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated.
Rejection of all distinctions in moral or religious value and a willingness to repudiate all previous theories of morality or religious belief.
The belief that destruction of existing political or social institutions is necessary for future improvement.
also Nihilism A diffuse, revolutionary movement of mid 19th-century Russia that scorned authority and tradition and believed in reason, materialism, and radical change in society and government through terrorism and assassination.
Psychiatry. A delusion, experienced in some mental disorders, that the world or one's mind, body, or self does not exist.
Works Cited
Padgett, John B. “The Sound and the Fury: Commentary.” William Faulkner on the Web. 11 Apr. 2005. Ed. John B. Padgett. U of Mississippi. 01 Mar. 2006
Macbeth
The Sound and the Fury
Originally titled “Twilight”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sound_and_the_Fury
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Faulkner
http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/1949/faulkner-bio.html
http://www6.semo.edu/cfs/teaching_faulkner.htm
http://www.keyway.ca/htm2000/20000830.htm
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=713&letter=B
http://town.hall.org/radio/HarperAudio/080294_harp_ITH.html
http://www.gradesaver.com/classicnotes/authors/about_william_faulkner.html
http://www.usask.ca/english/faulkner/main/criticism/deshaye.html
Jason
Jason (Greek: Ίασων, Etruscan: Easun) is a hero of Greek mythology who led the Argonauts in the search of the Golden Fleece. His father was Aeson, the rightful king of Iolcus.
The early years
Pelias (Aeson's half-brother) was power-hungry and he wished to gain dominion over all of Thessaly. Pelias was the product of a union between their shared mother Tyro ("high born Tyro") daughter of Salmoneus, and the sea god Poseidon. In a bitter feud, he overthrew Aeson (the rightful king), killing him and hopefully his descendants, who might take revenge on him. Alcimede (wife of Aeson) already had an infant son by Aeson, Jason who she sent to the centaur (half man, half horse) Chiron for education, for fear that Pelias would kill him - she claimed that he had been killed (circumstances unclear). Pelias, still paranoid that he would one day be overthrown, consulted an oracle which warned him to beware of a man coming forth from the people with only one sandal.
Many years later, Pelias was holding games in honour of the sea god and his alleged father, Poseidon, when Jason arrived in Iolcus and lost one of his sandals in the river Anauros ("wintry Anauros"), while helping an old woman (Goddess Hera in disguise) cross. She blessed him for she knew, as goddesses do, what Pelias had up his sleeve. When Jason entered Iolcus, he was announced as a man wearing one sandal. Paranoid, Pelias asked him what he (Jason) would do if confronted with the man who would be his downfall. Jason responded that he would send that man after the Golden Fleece. Pelias took that advice and sent Jason to retrieve the Golden Fleece as he thought it an impossible mission for this young lad that stood before him (Jason was supposed to have been in his late teens or early twenties at the time).
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The quest for the Golden Fleece
Jason bringing Pelias the Golden Fleece, Apulian red-figure calyx krater, ca. 340 BC-330 BC, Louvre
Jason assembled a great group of heroes and a huge ship called the Argo. Together, the heroes were known as the Argonauts. They included the Boreads, Heracles, Philoctetes, Peleus, Telamon, Orpheus, Castor and Polydeuces, Atalanta and Euphemus.
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The Isle of Lemnos
The isle of Lemnos is situated off the Western coast of Asia Minor (modern day Turkey). The island was inhabited by a race of women, who had killed their husbands. The women had neglected their worship of Aphrodite, and as a punishment the goddess made the women so foul in stench that their husbands couldn't bear to be near them. The men then took concubines from the Thracian mainland opposite, and the spurned women, naturally angry, killed every male inhabitant. The king, Thoas, was saved by Hypsipyle, his daughter, who put him out to sea sealed in a chest from which he was later rescued. The women of Lemnos lived for a while without men, with Hypsipyle as their queen.
The Argonauts stopped off on the isle, and the women welcomed them with open arms. Jason fathered twins with the queen, and many other Argonauts fathered children with the other women, thereby reintroducing a male population to the island (the offspring were male). Heracles pressured them to leave as he was disgusted by the antics of the Argonauts. He hadn't taken part, which is truly unusual considering the numerous affairs he had with other women. The Argonauts resumed their hunt for the Golden Fleece after spending a considerable amount of time on the island.
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Mysia
When the Argonauts reached Mysia, they sent some men to find food and water. Among these men was Heracles and his servant, Hylas. The nymphs of the stream where Hylas was collecting were taken by his good looks, and pulled him into the stream. When his friend did not return, Heracles went into the woods to find him, and the Argonauts were forced to leave Heracles and the forever lost Hylas behind.
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Phineus and the Harpies
Soon Jason reached the court of Phineus of Salmydessus in Thrace. Phineus had been given the gift of prophecy by Apollo, but was later blinded for revealing to men the deliberations of the gods. Also, Zeus sent Harpies, creatures with the body of a bird and the head of a woman, to prevent Phineus from eating any more than what was necessary to live. Jason took pity on the emaciated king, and killed the Harpies when they returned. In return for this favor, Phineus revealed to Jason the location of Colchis and how to cross the Symplegades, or The Clashing Islands.
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The Clashing Islands
The only way to reach Colchis was to sail through the Clashing Islands, huge rock cliffs that came together and crush anything that travels between them. Phineus told Jason to release a dove when approached this islands, and if the dove made it through, to row with all your might. If the dove was crushed, he was doomed to fail. Jason released the dove as advised, and as the rocks recoiled after the dove had passed, they rowed hard and made it through. Since the Argo, the first ship to pass through the Symplegades, the cliffs stand still.
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The Arrival in Colchis
Jason, a highly personal, dreamlike reinterpretation by the Symbolist Gustave Moreau, 1865
Jason arrived in Colchis (modern Black Sea coast of Georgia) to claim the fleece as his own. King Aeetes of Colchis promised to give it to him only if he could perform certain tasks. Presented with the tasks, Jason became discouraged and fell into depression. However, Hera had persuaded Aphrodite to convince her son Eros to strike Aeetes's daughter, Medea, with love for Jason. As a result, Medea aided Jason in his tasks. First, Jason had to plow a field with fire-breathing oxen that he had to yoke himself. Medea provided an ointment that protected him from the oxen's flames. Then, Jason sowed the teeth of a dragon into a field. The teeth sprouted into an army of warriors. Medea had previously warned Jason of this and told him how to defeat this foe. Before they attacked him, he threw a rock into the crowd. Unable to decipher where the rock had come from, the soldiers attacked each other and defeated each other. Although Jason had completed these tasks, Aeetes's was not willing to give up the fleece. He began to plan the destruction of the Argonauts. Medea, aware of her father's plans, brought Jason to the fleece that night before the king could act. When they approached the sleepless dragon that guarded the fleece, Medea used her magic to put the dragon to sleep. (Alternate versions tell of how Jason led the herd of sheep that had the golden wool to make the fleece. He was advised by Medea to lead the herd through a patch of thorned plants. The wool would then be trapped in the thorns so Jason could collect it.) Jason then took the fleece and sailed away with Medea, who had fallen in love with him and helped him win the fleece. Medea distracted her father as they fled by killing her brother Apsyrtus and throwing pieces of his body into the sea, which Aeetes had to stop for and gather. In the fight, Atalanta was seriously wounded but healed by Medea.
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The Return Journey
On the way back to Thessaly, Medea prophesised to Euphemus, the Argo's helmsman, that one day he would rule Libya. This came true through Battus, a descendant of Euphemus. Zeus, as punishment for the slaughter of Medea's own brother, sent a series of storms at the Argo and blew it off course. The "Argo" then spoke and said that they should seek purification with Circe, a witch living on the island called Aeaea. After being cleansed, they continued their journey home.
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Sirens
Chiron had told Jason that without the aid of Orpheus, the Argonauts would never be able to pass the Sirens. The Sirens lived on three small, rocky islands called Sirenum scopuli and sang beautiful songs that enticed sailors to come to them, which resulted in the crashing of their ship into the islands. When Orpheus heard their voices, he withdrew his lyre and played his music more beautifully than they, drowning out their music.
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Talos
The Argo then came to the island of Crete, guarded by the bronze man, Talos. As the ship approached, Talos hurled huge stones at the ship, keeping it at bay. Talos had one blood vessel which went from his neck to his ankle, bound shut by only one bronze nail. Medea cast a spell on Talos to calm him; she removed the bronze nail and Talos bled to death. The Argo was then able to sail on.
[edit]
Jason returns
Medea, using her sorcery, claimed to Pelias' daughters that she could make their father younger by chopping him up into pieces and boiling the pieces in a cauldron of water and magical herbs. She demonstrated this remarkable feat with a sheep, which leapt out of the cauldron as a lamb. The girls, rather naively, sliced and diced their father and put him in the cauldron. Medea did not add the magical herbs, and Pelias was dead.
Pelias' son, Acastus, drove Jason and Medea into exile for the murder, and the couple settled in Corinth. There he married Creusa, a daughter of the King of Corinth, to strengthen his political ties. Medea, angry at Jason for breaking his vow that he would be hers forever, got her revenge by presenting Creusa a cursed dress, as a wedding gift, that stuck to her body and burned her to death as soon as she put it on. Creusa's father, Creon, burnt to death with his daughter as he tried to save her. Medea killed the children that she bore to Jason, fearing that they would be murdered, or enslaved as a result of their mother's actions, and fled to Athens.
Later Jason and Peleus (father of the hero Achilles) would attack and defeat Acastus, reclaiming the throne of Iolcus for himself once more. Jason's son, Thessalus, then became king (the parentage of Thessalus is uncertain - i.e. who was his mother, since Medea killed her children? - Although there were mentions of twin boys he'd had on Lemnos).
Because he broke his vow to love Medea forever, Jason lost his favour with Hera and he died a lonely and unhappy man with no friends. He was asleep under the stern of the Argo, which was rotten, and it fell on him, killing him instantly. It was said that the manner of his death was due to the gods cursing him for breaking his promise to Medea.
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Argonauts in Classical Literature
Though some of the episodes of Jason's story draw on ancient material, the definitive telling, on which this account relies, is that of Apollonius of Rhodes in his epic poem Argonautica, written in Alexandria in the late 3rd century BC. Another, much later Argonautica by Gaius Valerius Flaccus also survives.
The story of Medea's revenge on Jason is told with devastating effect by Euripides in his tragedy Medea.
The mythical geography of the voyage of the Argonauts has been speculatively explicated by the historian of science and the cartography of Antiquity, Livio Catullo Stecchini, in a suggestive essay "The Voyage of the Argo" that draws upon fragments of the mythic sources Apollonius employed in constructing his poem.
In the Divine Comedy Dante sees Jason in the eighth circle of Hell among the seducers.
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Benjamin
Benjamin (Hebrew: בִּנְיָמִין; Standard Hebrew: Binyamin; Tiberian Hebrew Binyāmîn) is a Hebrew Bible figure. The name literally translates to "son of right," generally taken to mean "son of my right hand" but in some rabbinical traditions "son of the right side [of the body]" or "son of the south," the youngest son of Jacob and Rachel (Genesis 35:18).
His birth took place on the road between Bethel and Ephrath, characterized later by Christian writers as at a short distance from Bethlehem, because many centuries later the prophet Micah referred to "Bethlehem Ephrata." There is no other connection with Bethlehem. His mother died in childbirth, and with her last breath named him bem-oni ("son of my pain"), an ill-omened name which was changed by his father into Benjamin. His posterity were the tribe of Benjamin, sometimes translated "Benjamites" (Genesis 49:27; Deuteronomy 33:12; Joshua 18:21).
The tribe of Benjamin at the Exodus was the smallest but one Numbers 1:36-1:37; Psalms 68:27). During the march its place was along with Manasseh and Ephraim on the west of the tabernacle. At the entrance into Canaan it counted 45,600 warriors. It has been inferred by some from the words of Jacob (Genesis 49:27) that the figure of a wolf was on the tribal standard: "Benjamin is a wolf that raveneth; in the morning he shall devour the prey, at evening he shall divide the spoil."
This tribe is mentioned in Epistle to the Romans 11:1 and Philippians 3:5.
The inheritance of this tribe lay immediately to the south of that of Ephraim, and was about 26 miles in length and 12 in breadth. Its eastern boundary was the Jordan. Dan intervened between it and the Philistines. Its chief towns are named in Josh. 18:21-28.
The history of the tribe contains a sad record of a desolating civil war in which they were engaged with the other eleven tribes; they were almost exterminated (Judg. 20:20, 21; 21:10). (See GIBEAH ¯T0001476.)
The first king of the Jews was Saul, a Benjamite. A close alliance was formed between this tribe and that of Judah in the time of David (2 Sam. 19:16, 17), which continued after his death (1 Kings 11:13; 12:20). After the Exile these two tribes formed the great body of the Jewish nation (Ezra 1:5; 10:9), and to this day the other ten are referred to as the lost tribes of Israel. The tribe of Benjamin was famous for its archers (1 Sam. 20:20, 36; 2 Sam. 1:22; 1 Chr. 8:40; 12:2) and slingers (Judges 20:6).
The gate of Benjamin, on the north side of Jerusalem (Jer. 37:13; 38:7; Zech. 14:10), was so called because it led in the direction of the territory of the tribe of Benjamin. It is called by Jeremiah (20:2) "the high gate of Benjamin"; also "the gate of the children of the people" (17:19). (Comp. 2 Kings 14:13.)